papyrus of the undying (thing)

An egyptian papyrus believed to date back to the end of the Fifth Dynasty, about 2350 BC. The papyrus was unearthed by Maspero in 1883 and disposed of by private auction shortly afterwards. At the time, the papyrus was generally regarded as a minor text of secondary import that originated from a small, uninfluential serpent cult. The papyrus itself is believed to be the work of the priests of the Cult of Seta. It deals with the underworld, afterlife and magical regenerative formulae, as well as several blasphemous chapters devoted to the destruction of Ra, the Egyptian sun god. The text was not seen again until it was purchased by Rollo Ahmed, an Egyptian occult expert. Because of Mr. Ahmed's reputation among egyptologists as a serious occult practitioner, the papyrus was never fully accepted by the mainstream academic community of the time. The papyrus currently sits on display in the Berlin Musem of Aegyptologie.